The brief appearance yesterday of Mr John Bruton means three former or serving Taoisigh have now given evidence to the Moriarty tribunal. For Mr Bruton it was the third time he has given evidence to a Dublin Castle tribunal, having earlier featured at Hamilton and McCracken. Despite his experience, he looked a particularly uncomfortable witness yesterday.
He was in the box for much less than an hour and he seemed very nervous, almost on the brink of becoming emotional. That said, his evidence was clear.
In late 1995, after the granting of the second mobile telephone licence to Esat Digifone, Mr Bruton said, he believes he told the then secretary general of Fine Gael, Mr Jim Miley, that the party should not accept any donations from the winning consortium or anyone associated with it. He was concerned such a donation might be seen to be inappropriate.
Around the same time the late Mr David Austin, who had not up to then been a major figure in the Fine Gael fundraising organisation, was organising a lunch in New York which eventually raised more than $167,000.
About three months after the lunch, on February 24th, 1996, Mr John Bruton spoke by telephone to Mr Austin. Mr Bruton had thought he would thank Mr Austin for his fundraising effort. In fact, what happened was that Mr Austin informed Mr Bruton he had another donation for him, of $50,000, and that it came from "Esat Digifone interests". Mr Bruton said he "thinks" Mr Austin mentioned Mr Denis O'Brien.
The former Taoiseach could not recall if Telenor, the former Norwegian partner in Esat Digifone, was mentioned. He said the name wouldn't have meant anything to him at the time.
When Mr Bruton expressed his concern about receiving money from "that quarter", Mr Austin pressed him to accept it. (It was the only time he refused a donation.) Mr Austin may have said: "It is there for you in a bank account," though, Mr Bruton said, he did not focus on this. In fact the money was in a Jersey account belonging to Mr Austin.
Mr Bruton told Mr Austin to "leave it where it is" and remembered the phrase afterwards because he was concerned it was a bit ambiguous. Nevertheless, he assumed the donation would be dropped and that he would be consulted before any future donation might be accepted from Esat.
The next he heard of the donation was when he was told by Mr Miley, in 1998, that a donation in 1997 presented by Mr Austin as being a personal one, was in fact the Esat/Telenor one. Mr Bruton immediately instructed Mr Miley to return the money.
That, as everyone now knows, was no easy matter and the money has not yet been re turned. Esat and Telenor cannot agree as to whether it was a Telenor donation or a donation by the Norwegians on Esat's behalf.
Yesterday Mr Miley said he stood over notes written after a telephone conversation with Mr Austin in 1998, where Mr Austin said the payment had been routed through Telenor because Mr O'Brien wanted to "ensure confidentiality".
A former Esat Digifone director appointed by Telenor, Mr John Fortune, said that when he told Mr O'Brien in 1998 that Telenor was going to seek confirmation from Fine Gael that it had received the donation, Mr O'Brien argued against such a move. On Tuesday, Mr O'Brien said he recalled no such conversation and that there was an extraordinary level of purported recall in Mr Fortune's statement of intended evidence.
Yesterday, Mr Fortune said his evidence was based on contemporaneous solicitor's notes taken in 1998. These notes are to be given to the tribunal.
An opening statement is to be made today covering extensive Esat documentation recently received by the tribunal.